36 
FROM BERMUDAS TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
which supports the Canaries—from which we had brought up the black coral and the twin- 
sponges five months before. Proceeding towards our next destination, the Cape de Verde 
Islands, we sailed for several days over seas of a decidedly green colour, in remarkable contrast 
with the deep-blue tint usually observed between the tropics. This circumstance cannot have 
escaped the attention of the Portuguese navigators who first explored these seas ; and it has 
been suggested that both Cape Verde and the group of islands situated three hundred miles 
THE ROADSTEAD OF FUNCHAL. 
to westward of it owe their name not, as is generally stated, to a clump of baobab trees which 
crowns the summit of the cape, but to the seas of green water which mark the approach to 
the islands and the cape. Though we encountered these extensive green-coloured patches 
several hundred miles from the land, it is difficult not to associate them with the great rivers, 
the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Jeba, which on the neighbouring coast of Africa pour great 
volumes of fresh water into the Atlantic. The latter, being much lighter than the salt water 
of the tropical seas into which they flow, must float for a considerable time upon the surface of 
the ocean. 
ST. VINCENT. 
At dawn of the 27th the lofty mountains of St. Antonio and the serrated ridge of 
St. Vincent were visible from the deck. Apart from the natural gratification with which the 
traveller by sea hails the appearance of land, the sensation he experiences as he first discerns 
the faint outline, barely distinguishable among the clouds, which tells him that the loner-wished- 
for port is near, is perhaps the most exquisite reward for the monotony, the countless discom¬ 
forts, not to speak of the ever-present dangers, of life on board ship. This pale-grey image 
is to him a new land, a new combination of mountain and valley, of rock and river, of forest 
and open plain, clad in a new vegetation, enlivened by unknown forms of animal life, inhabited 
by fellow-men perchance of different race, speaking a strange tongue, having manners, customs, 
and traditions of their own. All this may be contained within the contours of the shadowy 
phantom that has just risen above the blue waves. In the present case such expectations 
